Car Safety Feature Bundles May Help Reduce Auto Accidents: Report

Larger safety packages were associated with fewer accident claims, especially those involving property damage and bodily injury claims.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) published a new safety benefits report late last month, outlining the substantial benefits provided by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), indicating that the advantages increase most when these capabilities are installed and used together.

ADAS include a wide array of electronic safety technologies, which are built into many new vehicles, using cameras, sensors and radar to monitor the road and assist drivers with tasks like braking, steering and maintaining safe distances. However, many automakers still reserve these features for high-end vehicles, or package them as expensive add-ons.

Common features of these systems include automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control and blind-spot detection, which are all designed to reduce the risk of accidents and improve overall driving safety.

For example, IIHS reported last year that stricter crash prevention criteria for automatic emergency braking systems can reduce both the frequency and severity of high speed accidents.

Prior findings have also shown that individuals, especially teens, who operate newer vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems may be substantially less likely to be killed in a crash.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Study

In the new IIHS study, researchers examined the impact of advanced driver assistance systems offered on 2015 to 2023 Mazda vehicles, comparing six feature bundles with four stand alone systems.

The basic package included front automatic emergency braking (AEB) with forward collision warning. The most advanced added pedestrian-detecting front AEB, adaptive cruise control, high beam assist, lane departure warning and prevention, rear AEB, and Driver Attention Alert, which detects driver fatigue or distraction.

Researchers found that the larger bundles offered in newer vehicles were more comprehensive and included more advanced versions of the technologies than those provided by smaller bundles.

Larger ADAS bundles were also linked to lower claim frequency, particularly for property damage and bodily injury liability, which covers damage to others’ vehicles or property as well as injuries to other people in a crash. Reported reductions include:

• Property damage claims:
  • About 40% reduction, bundle with the most features
  • 13% reduction, most basic bundle
  • 39% reduction, most comprehensive bundle
• Bodily injury claims:
  • About 15% reduction, bundle with the most features
  • 9% reduction, most basic bundle
  • 21% reduction, most comprehensive bundle—not statistically significant

ADAS Safety Improvements

The most significant safety gains were tied to the addition of front automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection and rear automatic emergency braking. Updated front AEB systems reduced pedestrian crashes and proved more effective at preventing collisions with other vehicles, while rear AEB helped avoid low-speed parking lot incidents, which account for a large share of insurance claims.

“These technologies are awesome. As they improve and become more common, we are seeing compounding crash reductions.”

— Matt Moore, Chief Insurance Operations Officer, HLDI and IIHS

While Mazda’s blind spot detection and rear cross traffic alert come as a single system and cannot be evaluated separately, the combination was linked to nearly a 10% drop in property damage claims and a 13% drop in bodily injury claims, the highest of all stand-alone systems.

ADAS Feature Limitations

One feature that did not show a significant benefit was Driver Attention Alert. However, its impact may have been limited because it activates only after about 20 minutes of driving at speeds between 41 and 86 mph and may not work on roads without clear lane markings.

Curve-adaptive headlights and the heads-up display, which projects information like vehicle speed and navigation guidance onto the windshield, were each linked to slightly smaller reductions. The impact of Traffic Sign Recognition, which identifies and displays traffic signs using a forward-facing camera or navigation data, was unclear.

Most safety systems and bundles were also associated with higher claim costs. This is likely because the sensors and technology are expensive to repair or replace after a crash. In addition, these systems tend to prevent low-speed accidents, which removes smaller claims and makes the average cost of remaining claims appear higher.

All bundles and features except Traffic Sign Recognition lowered losses for property damage liability, while a few slightly increased losses for collision coverage, which covers damage to the driver’s own vehicle.

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